Santorum Wants to Fix His “Google Problem”

There may be no fix to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's "Google problem," but that hasn't stopped him from blaming the search giant for equating his name with a sex act.

Santorum said he thinks Google's doing it on purpose, and taking a swing at him for his conservative beliefs. "I suspect if something was up there like that about Joe Biden, they’d get rid of it,” Santorum told Politico. “To have a business allow that type of filth to be purveyed through their website or through their system is something that they say they can't handle but I suspect that's not true.”

Santorum, who as a senator from Pennsylvania said he was against "homosexual acts," was targeted in 2003 by Dan Savage, a gay activist and sex columnist who coined the term "santorum" to mean a byproduct of a sexual act. The name stuck and Santorum can't shake it, especially now that it's had eight years to percolate on Google.

Now Santorum has contacted Google in an attempt to clear his name from being associated with a sex act and seems to be placing blame on the search engine -- which is odd, because earlier this year he seemed to lay blame at the feet of Savage. So are his diatribes against Google now just political and for show?

"Google’s search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web. Users who want content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page directly," a Google spokesperson told Politico.

We can't really fault Google here. Google is simply showing people where to find information, it didn't create it. We also liked the surprisingly useful advice that Salon gave to Santorum:

If Rick Santorum wants to fix his "Google problem" he should consider being personally more popular and professionally more influential than the people who are making fun of him.

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